


Wet Blanket

by SoDoRoses (FairyChess)



Series: Blanketverse [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Swearing, like GROWNUPS, not in that order, talking it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 00:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/SoDoRoses
Summary: Nobody actually enjoys being the family killjoy





	Wet Blanket

**Author's Note:**

> moving everything to AO3 as well as tumblr - enjoy!

When Virgil walked into the living room, he immediately knew it was going to be a bad day.

There are no possible good endings to a day that starts with Logan, Patton, and Roman sitting on the couch, clearing waiting for him to arrive.

“No,” he said immediately.

“You don’t even know what we’re going to say!” said Roman.

“There is no ‘we,’ in this scenario, I am here under duress,” interjected Logan.

“Would you be quiet, J. J. Fun-sucker!” hissed Roman.

“Doesn’t matter, I’m out,” said Virgil, waving as he turned toward the kitchen.

“Come ooooon, at least just listen first,”

Virgil could already feel his blood pressure ratcheting higher, but Princey had his hands clasped in front of him and looked genuinely pleading and well… well, Virgil wasn’t going to examine his motivations any closer than that.

“Fine, but coffee first. I’m not fielding whatever hare-brained scheme you’ve come up with without caffeine,”

“Yes!” said Roman, complete with fist pump.

“Slow your roll, Princey,

“Right, right, sorry,”

Virgil went through the motions of making a cup of coffee, but he could feel Roman’s eyes on his back and it was not helping to convince him he was going to be on board with anything Princey said.

“Sit, sit down,” Roman gestured to Virgil’s chair, bouncing over to his original spot on the couch and opening a suspiciously large and brightly-colored binder.

“I think I’d rather stand,” Virgil said, trying to make his voice nonchalant and instead sounding like he was about 6 seconds away from bolting. Which was true, but still.

“No, really, sit, that way you can see the binder!”

“I find it easier to capitulate, if only to make him slightly quieter,” deadpanned Logan, who had conjured a Rubik’s cube and seemed to have otherwise checked out of the conversation.

“Kiddo, calm down” said Patton, placing a slightly restraining hand on Roman, who Virgil was starting to think might be about to vibrate right out of his skin, “Virgil, Roman’s worked really hard on this, he’s just really excited for you to see it,”

Internally Virgil thought it probably had very little to do with him, but he just sighed, flopped down onto the floor to be closer to the binder, and gestured for Princey to start talking.

“OK!” said Roman, “So, I know Patton wants us to do more things as a group, and we all know board game night did not end well because some people can’t handle being wrong,-”

Logan’s head shot up from his puzzle.

“Nowhere in the rules of Monopoly does it say that the Luxury Tax money goes on Free Parking, Free Parking is a blank space, that’s the whole point,-”

“Sore losers notwithstanding!” interrupted Roman, opening the binder to a page with a sketch that, when Virgil peered closer, closely resembled the ballroom from Cinderella.

“I think we should go to a party in my realm!”

“No,” said Virgil instantly, moving to get up and leave.

“No, no, no, hear me out Virgil!” Roman quickly moved so Virgil was trapped behind the coffee table between Roman and Patton.

“There is nothing you could possibly say that would make me want to go to a party in the imagination,”

“You don’t know that!” Roman said confidently, leaning into Virgil’s personal space and placing the open binder directly in front of him. “Look, it’ll really just be the four of us, the other people won’t be real, they’re just-” he waved a hand around, “-atmospheric, and we’ll dance a little bit to nice music and eat fancy finger foods, it’ll be amazing!”

“Then why can’t we just do that here, without the imaginary people?” said Virgil, who would rather do literally anything else than hover in the corner of a fancy room being crowded by strangers, whether they were real or not.

Logan, at least, saw the merit in that statement.

“Virgil is correct; if the other attendees are going to be fabricated than there is really no reason to have them there,”

“I told you, it’s atmospheric!” Roman said, flipping the page and revealing four sets of fancy clothes in each of their color schemes, which instantaneously made Virgil slightly nauseous.

“Oh these look neat!” said Patton, and Roman pulled the card stock with the blue and silver outfit out of the binder and handed it to him.

“I tried to maintain all of your bori- ahem, more understated aesthetics, with the outfits, since-”

Faint ringing started in Virgil’s ears, and he knew, theoretically, that there was no chance Roman or Patton were going to hurt him, but the fact that they had him boxed in was playing jack in the box with his heart rate.

“Look, you guys can go and subject yourselves to as many imaginary crowds as you want but I’m giving it a hard pass,”

He clamored around Roman but he didn’t get far before Roman had grabbed him by the sleeve and started talking again.

“There doesn’t have to be a lot of people!” he said, his voice slightly strained. “And I can make them stay away from you, they’ll only talk if you start first,”

“Roman, I don’t want to,” said Virgil, confused as to why Princey wasn’t letting this go.

“Well, what’s wrong with it?” Roman demanded, and the edge of irritation in his voice, that, at least, was familiar.

“What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong with it?’ Roman it’s a party,”

“But they aren’t real,” Roman said sharply, and Virgil could feel his own temper rising to meet him. “So why would it-”

“Hey now, there’s no reason to fight about this,” said Patton tentatively.

“We’re not fighting!” snapped Roman, before turning to Virgil with an expression that suggested even if they weren’t fighting before, they certainly were now.

“It’s just a few hours, nobody will bother you if you don’t want them to, and if you just,-”

“Not going, goodbye,” hissed Virgil, yanking his sleeve out of Roman’s grip.

“Virgil, don’t you want to have fun for once?” Roman shouted.

The room fell dead silent. Virgil tried to school his expression into something besides heartbroken, but from the way Roman immediately looked like he’d kicked a kitten he figured he hadn’t done a very good job.

“I-,” Roman’s voice was quiet, but somehow still sounded deafening in the silence of the living room. “I didn’t mean that,”

“Sure you didn’t,” said Virgil, trying for scathing but his voice cracked halfway through and oh god he was not going to cry over this, fuck that-

“I really didn’t Virgil, please, that came out all wrong-”

“I’m going to my room,” Virgil muttered through gritted teeth, blinking rapidly and speed walking away, too focused on hiding his face to notice Roman try to follow him, only to be stopped by Patton’s hand on his wrist.

Wet blanket, buzzkill, spoilsport, mope, killjoy,defeatist-

Virgil tore his headphones off and threw them down on the floor in front of him. He put his head on his knees and focused the entire force of his will on keeping down the lump in his throat.

He was not going to cry.

Have fun for once-

Like Virgil just doing it for a laugh. Like he was doing it on purpose or something, like he wasn’t constantly wishing he could relax-

The knock on his door was so quiet that if Virgil still had his headphones on he definitely wouldn’t have heard it.

“Go away,” he said flatly.

A long pause, and then another soft knock. Virgil raised his voice to something just below a shout.

“I said go away,”

“Virgil,” came Roman’s voice, along with a thump that Virgil thought might have been him letting his head slam against the door. “Please let me in,”

“You’ve reached the life model decoy of Virgil Sanders, please leave a message at-”

“Virgil, please,”

Virgil’s fists clenched and he threw himself up off the floor towards the door, wrenching it open in one motion.

“What,”

“I’m sorry,” said Roman beseechingly.

“Great; bye,” said Virgil, shutting the door in his face and slamming his back to it.

“Virgil,” begged Roman, and another thump landed on the door, making Virgil jump. “I really didn’t mean it like that,”

“How else am I possibly supposed to take that, Princey!?”

“I just meant-” Roman cut himself off with a groan, and one last thump and then a sliding sound told Virgil that he was leaning against the door on the floor on the other side. Virgil slid down and let his head fall back against it.

“I just thought if I could make sure the people wouldn’t bother you, that you wouldn’t have be all-” Roman seemed to grapple for an appropriate word and then just sighed.

“Do you think I like being like this?”

“That’s my point,” said Roman desperately. “I just wanted to do something to make you happy,”

The silence stretched thin, and Virgil was suddenly more confused than angry.

He scooted away from the door, opening it as he went. Unprepared, Roman fell backwards and landed flat on his back.

“What do you mean?” said Virgil apprehensively.

Roman dragged his hands down his face and made no move to get up from the floor.

“You just-,” he seemed so upset he almost seemed to be in pain, and he wouldn’t make eye contact with Virgil. “You’re always worried about what might happen, and making sure nothing does happen, and just- and just always watching, waiting for something to go wrong,-”

“That’s my job,”

“Does it have to be?”

Virgil’s chest was constricting painfully, and he tried, tried not to sound like his heart was shattering into a million pieces when he spoke.

“I thought… I thought you all said I was- I was okay, the way I was,” and he couldn’t, couldn’t, he sounded like he was going to burst into tears, why couldn’t he just not freak out-

“What? No!” said Roman, sitting up and leaning towards him, “No, that’s not what I meant-”

“Can you just- can you just go, Princey,” said Virgil quietly.

“You just seem so miserable,” blurted Roman.

Virgil’s head jerked up.

“Just- you’re unhappy, all the time and it isn’t- it isn’t fair, you shouldn’t have to be- to be suffering, just all of the time for the rest of us, and I feel like we aren’t-” He swallowed nervously, picking at the carpet in a way that was decidedly abnormal for him.

Virgil was slowly unfolding from his curled position, but Roman didn’t seem to notice, to caught up in his monologue and his vision focused on the door jam.

“I feel like I’m not doing enough to make you happy,” he said quietly. “And you should. Be happy. You deserve to be happy, and I thought- if I could make a party with all of the fun parts, but none of the stressful ones, than maybe you could,-”

Virgil made a choked off noise, and Roman turned to him instantly, his face crumpling.

“No, no, no, don’t cry, I’m sorry, I-”

“I’m not crying, you idiot, I’m laughing,” said Virgil wetly, and he was only half lying, because he really was laughing, though he absolutely also was crying.

“I- I- don’t understand,” said Roman hesitantly.

“You tried to make me an anxiety-proof party?”

Roman flushed and made a noise of offense. “It- it wasn’t like it was a ridiculous idea-”

“It was,” laughed Virgil, and his cheeks were starting to hurt from how hard he was smiling. “It was definitely ridiculous, and totally insane, and totally you,”

Roman didn’t seem to know if that was supposed to be an insult or not.

“So… are you still-?”

“First of all,” said Virgil, wiping his face with his sleeves, “I’m not unhappy.”

Roman gave him dubious expression.

“OK, yes, I’m usually- definitely stressed out, and wound tighter than a ten-day clock, and I get irritated pretty easy, but those things all also apply to Logan, and you haven’t concocted any hare-brained scheme to make him happier, as far as I know,”

Roman had the decency to turn even more pink.

“I’m happy. In general and with you-” too much, too much, back off - “with you guys, and this family thing, I’m. I’m really happy. I am,”

Roman started to smile hesitantly. Virgil couldn’t help but reach out and squeeze his hand.

“So you’re… you’re not upset anymore?”

Virgil was about as far from upset as he’d ever been, and, in fact, was starting feel slightly lightheaded from how giddy he was, but he definitely wasn’t about to tell Princey that.

“Show me the binder, and then I’ll decide,” he said, climbing to his feet and pulling Roman up with him.

“You… want to see it?” said Roman, uncertainly.

“I’m not- I’m not saying I’m sure it’ll work. But I think, between the two of us, we might be able to figure it out,”

Roman’s face split into a blinding grin and he surged forward to press a loud smack of a kiss to Virgil’s cheek, before dragging him back towards the living room, chattering excitedly.

Virgil decided, as he moved into step with Roman and fitted their hands together more comfortably, that he didn’t mind being wrong about it being a bad day.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell about sanders sides with me at tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors.tumblr.com


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